Skip to main content

RBI removes NPA tag from 20 loan accounts

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reduced the list of companies whose loans have to be provided for by banks to cover against the risk of default. This will ease the pressure on banks and improve their balance sheets.
According to people familiar with the development, about 20 select loan accounts have been kept aside, implying that banks will not have to provide for these accounts under the asset quality review (AQR) exercise initiated by the RBI in December.
While the RBI did not respond to a query on this issue by HT, a senior official of a large public sector bank (PSB) confirmed the move, saying the steps taken by the 20 companies to reduce their debt has prodded the central bank to make this relaxation. It is learnt that the RBI told heads of banks in a late April 20 communication that they will not have to provide for the outstanding loans of the 20 firms in the March quarter.
Infrastructure major Jaiprakash Associates and Coastal Energen were among the 20 NPA accounts that banks will be exempt from providing for. This will help banks keep the accounts as ‘standard’ for the January-March quarter and report better results.
NPAs or non-performing assets are loans that do not yield returns.
Provisioning typically involves banks setting aside an amount to cover for loans that run the risk of a default. A slowing economy and stalled projects over the past two years had led many companies to default on their loan payments to banks, prompting the banks to make large provisions. This provisioning had affected the profitability of banks, leading many large PSBs to report losses.
Another banker suggested that “the RBI would have reviewed the status of these accounts after their performance in the previous months and selectively identified them where they are convinced with the steps taken by those companies.”
Fifteen PSBs reported losses on their domestic operations in the third quarter of 2015-16 as a result of increased provisions for loss assets and write-offs of bad loans.
Hindustan Times New Delhi,22 April 2016

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...

Healthy balance sheets augur well for economy: RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra

  Large tariffs by the United States administration and elevated geopolitical risk have increased near-term global financial stability risks, and along with weather events pose downside risks to domestic growth, Reserve Bank of India(RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra said in the foreword to the Financial Stability Report released today.Noting that domestic growth momentum is buoyed by strong domestic drivers, sound macroeconomic fundamentals and prudent policies, Malhotra said: “External spillovers and weather-related events could pose downside risks to growth.”On the other hand, he said the outlook for inflation is benign, and there is greater confidence in the durable alignment of inflation with the Reserve Bank’s target.Commenting that the structural shifts reshaping the global economy are making policy intervention challenging, the Governor emphasised the need for central banks and financial sector regulators to remain vigilant, prudent and agile in safeguarding their economies and...